


now i just sit in silence

by joshiesfreckles



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Aftermath, Angst, Blood and Injury, Car Accidents, Character Death, Deaf Character, F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-06 14:34:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18853021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joshiesfreckles/pseuds/joshiesfreckles
Summary: The ringing is back, Josh can practically taste it in his mouth, and suddenly the ringing defines his entire being.// Loosely based on Car Radio





	now i just sit in silence

**Author's Note:**

> @ k*t ;)
> 
> I really fuckin snapped with this one not gonna lie. Quick question, do I put this in my "joshler fluff" series or not? Maybe I shouldn't. Don't wanna give anyone false hope.

 

It’s all okay before it’s not, Josh learns this the hard way. 

One minute they’re joking, Josh snorts as an oreo cookie hits him in the face. Tyler’s laugh rings in Joshua’s ears for a moment, keeping him grounded from everything in his mind. It’s all okay, Josh’s eyes catch the way the scenery outside flies by.

“Tomorrow’s show is gonna be sick.” Tyler smiles, his eyes squinting. Josh misses Debby and Jenna at this moment, glad to be with his best friend but upset that their significant others aren’t there to see where they’re at now. They stop at an intersection, Josh watches the light turn green and they’re moving again.

Josh doesn’t even have time to make out a “yeah,” before everything happens, everything spinning around him. His head hits the window, his ears ringing. He doesn’t realize what’s happening until he hits the seat in front of him, his mind barely registering the sound of screeching tires over the sound of screams from Tyler.

_ Tyler,  _ Josh’s mind races, gasping for breath when the van tips onto its side and his back hits the door behind him with full force. He can’t feel his legs, and his seatbelt had snapped, but he reaches up to the back of his head and his hand comes back covered in blood. There’s glass everywhere, Josh’s vision is blurry, and he climbs through the windshield.

“Tyler,” Josh gasps, his eyebrows furrowed when he can barely hear himself or anything at all. Mark and Micheal are in the van, Josh can barely see them waking up in the corner of his eye, but  _ where the hell is Tyler?  _ Josh searches everywhere for him, his breathing labored. His blurry vision barely catches the body laying nearly 30 yards from the van, across the intersection.

Josh crawls over, nearly collapsing near his best friend. He’s not moving, Josh can’t hear anything but a ringing and his own heartbeat. His eyes flash with blue and red, ambulances and police are in the distance, but Josh can’t see enough to know how far they actually are. “Tyler, wake up,” Josh shakes him, everything flashing before him. His fingers press to Tyler’s throat, there’s no pulse.

“Tyler, please, wake up. I need you, you can’t leave me,” Josh begins to cry,  _ god,  _ there’s blood everywhere as his hand's race to pump at Tyler’s chest. “Wake up, please wake up.” Josh doesn’t know how loud he’s being, he can’t hear  _ anything,  _ collapsing next to his best friend. He grabs Tyler’s hand, his own hand slapping at Tyler’s face.

His back aches, he can’t kneel anymore, rolling on his back to stare at the sky. It’s not raining, he wishes it was, he wishes he could hear the sound of rain hitting the road, or feel the water wash away the blood on his hands, or maybe run through it with Tyler like they used to. Josh is empty, Tyler’s not moving,  _ he’s not breathing,  _ and he can’t hear anything anymore. The ringing in his ears makes the pounding in Joshua’s head worse. He didn’t realize he had a migraine until now, a sob escaping him. He’s numb, all feeling except sadness and anger escaping him.

He’s never going to get to rest his head in Tyler’s lap when his head is pounding again, never going to hear his laugh, he’s never going to play another show with his best friend, and how is he going to tell Jenna? She’ll be crushed, but she won’t have to see her husband like  _ this,  _ laying next to Josh all bloody.

“Tyler,” Josh cries, seeing paramedics racing towards him, “Please wake up.” He begs one last time, his eyes slipping closed. Maybe he could die here too, escaped from any future thoughts and emotion. He could escape the inevitable funeral that would happen in a few weeks, his throat closing in on him as he struggles to breathe.

Everything’s crashing down on him, and Josh lets himself slip under the heavy blanket of unconsciousness. 

 

++

 

The ringing in Joshua’s ears only got worse, only to suddenly stop as his eyes slip open. He doesn’t understand what’s happening as his eyes search the room, finding Debby and Jenna talking with a nurse. He can’t hear them, his eyebrows furrowing and  _ Tyler.  _ Jenna looks like she’d been crying, but she seems oddly calm.

Josh must have made a noise because everyone turns to him immediately, the nurse making her way to check his vitals. Josh tries to sit up, his body washing over with pain.  _ It doesn’t matter,  _ his mind shouts,  _ go find Tyler.  _ Is Tyler okay? What happened? Why is Jenna so calm? Josh moves to get up, stopped by Debby.

“What’s happening? Where’s Tyler? Why are you all so fucking  _ okay?”  _ Josh can’t hear himself, his heartbeat pounding in his ears as the nurse next to his bed tries to calm him. Debby tries speaking to him, Josh thinks he’s shouting, and the nurse says something to both the girls in the room. She reaches over for a notepad, scribbling something down.

_ ‘Joshua, you’ve most likely gone deaf.’  _ Her eyebrows furrow, giving him an understanding look before writing down something else.  _ ‘I understand you’re confused. Please stay calm, if you move too much you’ll reopen your stitches. Tyler, which I’m guessing was the male we found next to you, didn’t make it.’  _ The nurse, Josh catches her name tag - Brenda - gives him a sad look.

Josh sits back, his face falling, and every feeling he’d had comes back. His mind overloads with pictures of the people he loved coated in blood, every feeling dyed with red. The ringing is back, Josh can practically taste it in his mouth, and suddenly the ringing defines his entire being.

Josh sits in his hospital bed, in near complete silence, the ringing slowly driving him insane.

 

++

 

Josh’s eyes rake over where his fingers curl around his steering wheel, the world around him doused in complete silence. He breathes, the air that flows into his lungs almost feels painful, burning him from the inside out as if it’s some type of fire that’s meant to set him free. It’s doing the opposite, drowning him in a desire so strong that it’s keeping Josh submerged, pressing his face and head and body into a pit of darkness that only gets deeper.

The doctors are telling him his eardrums are repairing themselves, but Josh almost doesn’t believe them, because if his hearing is back, it means he’ll have to hear all the same sounds he once heard before. Maybe he’ll hear the screech of tires as they slide against the pavement, or he’ll hear laughter and think it’s Tyler, who had died nearly 7 months ago.

Josh wants to go back, to warn Micheal, and tell him to just  _ wait.  _ Don’t move from that intersection, turn instead of moving straight ahead. Turn around just as his life did. Warn him that they’d lose someone so important to them, so important to  _ Josh. _

What once kept Joshua grounded is gone, his thoughts piling up. There’s no sound to hide behind, everything’s gone, and Josh doesn’t know if he can keep fighting an internal battle, or how long that battle is going to last. Josh isn’t alive, he doesn’t have faith anymore, and if he doesn’t have faith, why is he here? Why does he have to drown, why did his best friend have to die?

Josh’s eyes can’t track the scenery outside his car windows like he used to, he can’t hear the engine revving as he presses his foot to the pedal  _ harder,  _ driving the car faster down a road of no return. His other foot wouldn’t catch the breaks in time even if he tried, Josh leans back in his seat. There’s no ringing, nothing, and Josh takes a deep breath.  _ Don’t think.  _ Josh closes his eyes, his fingers loosening on the grip. It’ll be over soon, Josh tells himself, and he replays Tyler’s last moments in his head.

 

Josh breathes out, the car that’s kept him trapped for too long speeding down the long road ahead of him, and he tilts his head back, letting go of the steering wheel and losing control of the car.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> sorry.  
> my twitter is @lonelydxnce, and my tumblr is joshiesfreckles if you wanna go leave me some hate for this. it was a friend's request anyway. she wanted angst.


End file.
